Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (Doctor Who Series 7 Episode 10) - Episode Guide

The Doctor - Matt Smith
Clara - Jenna-Louise Coleman

Gregor Van Baalen - Ashley Walters
Bram Van Baalen - Mark Oliver
Tricky - Jahvel Hall
Time Zombie - Sarah Louise Madison
Time Zombie - Ruari Mears
Time Zombie - Paul Kasey

Stunt Coordinators - Crispin Layfield, Gordon Seed
Stunt Performers - Andre Layne, Lewis Young

First Assistant Director - Jonathan Farmer
Second Assistant Director - Heddi-Joy Taylor-Welch
Third Assistant Director - Delmi Thomas
Assistant Directors - Daneille Richards, Gareth Jones
Location Manager - Nicky James
Unit Manager - Monty Till
Location Assistant - Iestyn Hampson-Jones
Production Manager - Phillipa Cole
Production Coordinator - Claire Hildred
Assistant Coordinator - Gabriella Ricci
Production Secretary - Sandra Cosfeld
Production Assistants - Rachel Vipond, Samantha Price
Assistant Accountant - Rhys Evans
Assistant Script Editor - John Phillips
Script Supervisor - Rory Herbert
Camera Operator - Joe Russell
Focus Pullers - James Scott, Chris Walmsley
Grip - Gary Norman
Camera Assistants - Meg De Koning, Sam Smithard, Evelina Norgren
Assistant Grip - Owen Charnley
Sound Maintenance Engineers - Ross Adams, Chris Goding
Gaffer - Mark Hutchings
Best Boy - Stephen Slocombe
Electricians - Bob Milton, Nick Powell, Gafin Riley, Gareth Sheldon
Supervising Art Director - Paul Spriggs
Set Decorator - Adrian Anscombe
Production Buyers - Adrian Greenwood, Holly Thurman
Art Director - Amy Pickwoad
Stand By Art Director - Nandie Narishkin
Assistant Art Director - Richard Hardy
Art Department Coordinator - Donna Shakesheff
Prop Master - Paul Smith
Prop Chargehand - Ian Griffin
Set Dresser - Jayne Davies
Prophands - Austin J. Curtis, Jamie Farrell, Jamie Southcott
Standby Props - Helen Atherton, Rob Brandon
Dressing Props - Mike Elkins, Paul Barnett
Graphic Designer - Chris Lees
Graphic Artist - Christina Tom
Concept Artist - Bryan Hitch
Storyboard Artist - Andrew Wildman
Petty Cash Buyer - Florence Tasker
Standby Carpenter - Will Pope
Standby Rigger - Bryan Griffiths
Practical Electricial - Christian Davies
Props Makers - Penny Howarth, Alan Hardy, Jamie Thomas
Props Driver - Gareth Fox
Construction Manager - Terry Horle
Construction Chargehand - Dean Tucker
Scenic Artist - John Pinkerton
Assistant Costume Designer - Fraser Purfit
Costume Supervisor - Carly Griffith
Costume Assistants - Katarina Cappellazzi, Gemma Evans
Make-Up Artists - Katie Lee, Vivienne Simpson
Casting Associate - Alice Purser
Assistant Editor - Becky Trotman
VFX Editor - Joel Skinner
Dubbing Mixer - Tim Ricketts
ADR Editor - Matthew Cox
Dialogue Editor - Darran Clement
Sound Effects Editor - Paul Jefferies
Foley Editor - Jamie Talbutt
Graphics - Peter Anderson Studio
Additional Visual Effects - BBC Wales Visual Effects
Online Editor - Geraint Pari Huws
Colourist - Mick Vincent

With thanks to
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Conducted and orchestrated by Ben Foster
Mixed by Jake Jackson
Recorded by Gerry O' Riordan

Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer
Casting Director - Andy Pryor CDG
Production Executive - Julie Scott
Post Production Supervisor - Nerys Davies
Production Accountant - Jeff Dunn
Sound Recordist - Deian Llyr Humphreys
Costume Designer - Howard Burden
Make-Up Designer - Barbara Southcott
Music - Murray Gold
Visual Effects - The Mill
Special Effects - Real SFX
Prosthetics - Millennium FX
Editor - Selina MacArthur
Production Designer - Michael Pickwoad
Director of Photography - Jake Polonsky
Script Producer - Denise Paul
Line Producer - Des Hughes

Executive Producers - Steven Moffat, Caroline Skinner

A spaceship salvage team drags the TARDIS on board, sending its systems into meltdown.

As the Doctor marshals the motley salvage crew outside, he realises Clara is still trapped within his malfunctioning ship, pursued by a dangerous group of ossified monsters. He has just 30 minutes to find Clara and save his TARDIS before it self-destructs.

The android Tricky is polishing a part inside the Van Baalen Bros. salvage ship when the system alerts him and Bram that there is salvage to be verified. Bram believes that it's just space junk, but his brother Gregor wants to go for it, anyway. They suit up.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is hounding Clara to attempt to bond with the TARDIS, but she flatly refuses to talk to a piece of machinery. He gets her to agree to try flying it, and to make it easier, he puts it into Basic Mode. She flips some levers and suddenly, the ship shudders, losing then regaining power, and the music that the Van Baalen ship had been playing starts to play. The scanner screen cracks and shudders, and the Doctor starts to work the controls more frantically. He can't get the shields up, and the salvage ship's magno-grab nearly has them. The Doctor forces a lever up, and something in the TARDIS console explodes, throwing them both back. Clara asks him to tell her that there's a button he can press to fix it. He says, "Oh, yes, big, friendly button." Clara asks if he's lying to make her feel better, and he is. A hand-sized metal object rolls towards Clara, who picks it up. It burns her right hand, and she drops it.

The machinery of the salvage ship pulls the TARDIS into a bay, and, believing it to be a derelict escape pod, the brothers attempt to cut into it, but are unsuccessful. Tricky's bionic eyes pick up signs of a living being - a pair of shoes sticking out from under the wreckage. They withdraw, and Gregor is whispering a cover story to the other two when the Doctor pops in, saying it's not polite to whisper. Bram says that they found his ship drifting and the Doctor immediately corrects him, saying an illegal magno-grab broke his ship, which would have been safe if he hadn't disabled the defenses. He shows them that he found the remote to the magna-grab in Gregor's pocket.

The Doctor realises that Clara is not with them. Realising that she's still inside, he bolts for the TARDIS. Tricky stops him, telling him that the fuel is leaking. The Doctor spots respirators, then talks the salvage crew into going with him, promising the salvage of a lifetime within the ship.

Inside the TARDIS, the Cloister Bell sounds. Clara awakes in a corridor, having been unconscious. She checks the hand that was burned. Coming to a door with a red light, she debates opening it. She regrets deciding to do so, as flames gush out. She runs down the corridor to escape. Moving around the TARDIS, Clara hears a growling noise. She takes refuge in a room containing a cot and a small model of a police box.

In the console room, the Doctor is amused by the reaction of the others to the size of the TARDIS. He uses fans to vent the gas and smoke from the room. As they all take off their respirators, he tells the others that he needs them to help find Clara. They initially refuse, but he tells them he has activated the TARDIS self-destruct. Locking the doors so they can't leave, he informs them that the "salvage of a lifetime" he was talking with was not the ship, but Clara.

To avoid the source of the growling noise, Clara has moved to another room, a very large library. She goes to a large book entitled The History of the Time War. Flipping through a few pages, she pauses and reads something, muttering to herself "So that's who..." She then hears the growling noise again, and hides behind a bookshelf. She knocks over some glass containers labeled Encyclopedia Gallifreya, and the source of the growling - a dark, "zombie" like creature - runs past her.

Her hand continues to ache from the burn, but she sees the burn marks slowly resolving into letters. She ends up in the console room, finding another ossified creature, mimicking her movements and approaching her.

The Doctor, Gregor, and Tricky reach the console room, and the Doctor senses Clara in an echo of the console room. With the help of Gregor's scanner to identify Clara, the Doctor creates a temporary link and grabs Clara before the creature touches her. Gregor demands the Doctor end the countdown; the Doctor, though revealing the self-destruct was a ruse to get their cooperation, finds the TARDIS engines have become unstable due to the leakage of time caused by the incident, and they must go to the engine room by way of the Eye of Harmony to prevent it from exploding. En route, Tricky is injured and in pain, to his surprise; Gregor is forced to reveal Tricky is truly human and also his brother; after an accident that cost the life of their father, Tricky had lost his memories and had special implants to replace damaged organs, so Gregor had acted as if Tricky was an android so as to claim the captaincy of the salvage vessel. The Doctor comments on Gregor's treatment of Tricky and suggests he can do better.

While traveling through the Eye of Harmony, the four are trapped by ossified creatures. When Gregor scans them and finds one similar to Clara's biology, the Doctor confesses that these creatures are themselves from the future due to the time leak, and tries to prevent that future from happening. However, Gregor and Tricky are unable to avoid contacting themselves and become the conjoined ossified creature, seen earlier, before the Doctor and Clara's eyes. The two flee towards the engine room, but come across a chasm with no way across. The Doctor, thinking that they are going to die, asks Clara to explain who she is and how she could have died twice before. Clara doesn't understand, and the Doctor realises she has no knowledge of their previous encounters and is simply a young woman. The Doctor and Clara then leap across the chasm believing that it is just an illusion and reach the engine room.

In the engine room, they find the engine has already exploded but the TARDIS has placed the room in time stasis as a safety measure. The Doctor is aware the TARDIS is trying to tell him something, but cannot figure out what until Clara looks at her hand, the burn marks fully formed into words - "big friendly button". The Doctor realises that they need to go back to the point of the disaster and activate the magnetic beacon - the device Clara picked up - to stop the magnetic tractor and prevent the disaster. They race to the console room, where the Doctor takes the discarded beacon and prepares to travel through a time rift. Clara asks what she will remember and says she knows the Doctor's name from reading the Time War book; the Doctor promises her that she will remember nothing. The Doctor successfully crosses the rift and warns his past self. The past Doctor, understanding the warning, grabs the beacon from Clara when she picks it up - the letters "big friendly button" inscribed on its side - and hits the button.

Time resets to before the events of the episode. The Van Baalens ignore the TARDIS and continue, though in this new timeline, Gregor has become more appreciative of Tricky having recalled the Doctor's words. In the TARDIS, the Doctor asks Clara if she feels safe with him, and she readily agrees.

[Source: TARDIS Wiki]